Interview with Keith Murray from We Are Scientists

Here’s another new interview I did with Keith Murray from We Are Scientists for Strife Magazine. Their new album “Helter Seltzer” is pretty amazing. Actually I only listened to it to prepare for this interview (I’m currently in a hard rock mood), but then couldn’t really stop listening to it. Pick it up if you haven’t yet! Here’s an excerpt of the interview:

With their fifth studio album Helter Seltzer, New York’s Indie-rockers We Are Scientists delivered the perfect album for the upcoming summer. Most of the songs on it, like “Buckle”, “In My Head”, “Too Late” or “Waiting For You”, are extremely catchy. Believe me, I haven’t been able to stop listening to the album for weeks now. So, in case you didn’t catch the drift by now: you really have to give it a listen if you haven’t already! But before you start (remember you won’t be able to stop listening for a while), read our interview with Keith Murray, one half of We Are Scientists below! He chatted about the recording process of Helter Seltzer, its crazy album cover, touring life, if they ever thought about quitting and so much more:

Strife Magazine [Melissa Wilke]: With Helter Seltzer you wanted to create an all out pop album. Why did you choose this direction for the band?
Keith Murray: It’s just what we were interested in, at that moment. We’ve made five albums of increasingly poppy music, so it seemed like a fairly natural progression for us. We’ve certainly not given up on our love for writing hard rock bashers, but it felt like it would be a fun experiment to try to shoot for a more pop-centric sound than is usual for us.

SM: Did the recording process from this album differ to the last? If yes, how?
KM: Every record has been different. For the last record, we spent three weeks in the New York City’s legendary Magic Shop (sadly, the studio has since closed, not directly because of anything we did – I think!) and then finished up in our producer’s subterranean studio. This time, we took a more holistic approach – we rented an empty space in a warehouse in Brooklyn and built a studio of our own. We went in there every day for three months and treated recording like a 9-to-5 job. It was a refreshing change of pace, not having to heed the time-sensitivity and financial burden of being on a third-party studio’s clock. It let us be a little more experimental and to feel less under-the-gun than is usual for us, when recording.

SM: Do you have a favorite song on the album? What makes it special to you?
KM: I like them all, really, but Too Late is a big favorite of mine. It feels especially poppy to me, what with all of the bleepy synth sounds and largely electronic drums. Plus, it’s got a killer melody and a fun middle-eight breakdown.

SM: We love the album cover of Helter Seltzer! Can you tell us the story behind it? How the hell did you come up with it?
KM: We wanted a cover that would reflect the “helter skelter” aspect of the title, so we just made a jumbled list of inspirational elements we wanted to include – it’s got Illuminati-grade intrigue, Eyes Wide Shut-style sleazebags, and the helicopter from the beginning of The Running Man. It’s got alcohol and cats and acrobats. Pretty much everything we like.
​SM: You’ve been a band for 16 years now, that’s quite a long time! How did you manage to stick together for all those years? Has there ever been a moment when you wanted to quit?
KM: There hasn’t been a moment when I’ve wanted to quit, no. I suppose there have been times when I wondered if we *should* quit, in the name of maintaining our financial, emotional, and physical well-being. But being in a band with your best friend makes it pretty easy to get over the difficult hurdles and plow forward with the more exciting and rewarding aspects of being in a band.